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Introduction
In terms of VET innovation the enjeux are very relevant: a shift of emphasis is
required from training to learning and from the mere transmission of knowledge
through training interventions to the facilitation of learning (i.e. the creation, use and
circulation of knowledge), through more complex interventions in which training is
mixed with other HRD practices.
The focus upon particular kinds of knowledge development has been identified as a
key factor in innovations designed to increase the supply of creative knowledge
value: what is important for the production of knowledge value is not so much
facilities or equipment in the material sense, but the knowledge, experience, and
sensitivity to be found among those engaged in its creation (Sakaiya, 1991, p270).
This way, knowledge is assumed as the real driving force of our era, but also strictly
linked with day-to-day problem-solving and problem-setting in working situations,
and more generally with the professional competencies and expertise.
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identify four different kinds of knowledge, each requiring different types of mastery:
know-what, know-why, know-how, know-who.
A typology of different kinds of knowledge, akin in many ways to the one mentioned
above, has been developed by Vickstroem and Normann in their attempt to develop a
new perspective of corporate transformation (1994). They distinguish: information,
skill (or know-how), explanation, and understanding.
Understanding is the most profound form of knowledge, arising when principles and
connections are recognised. Understanding is thus embedded in individuals and is in
many ways equivalent to learning, insofar as it involves the creation of new
knowledge.
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obtained through the typical channels of knowledge acquisition (reading books,
attending lectures, accessing data bases), while the other two categories are rooted
primarily in practical experience and are more problematic insofar as they require the
availability of social informal channels. Apprenticeship is a fundamental channel for
acquiring know-how knowledge: it represents the most important way for skilling
new-comers in an organisation, but these protracted processes of learning by doing
are also frequently the responsibility of those who are considered the experts in an
organisation, capable of above-average performance. Simulations are sometimes
used as shortcuts for reproducing the many aspects of the know-how acquisition
available in real situations. Know-who - as Lundvall and Johnson (1994) point out -
is also socially embedded knowledge which cannot easily be transferred through
formal channels of information. It is learnt in social practices (like those taking place
in the professional communities giving the participants access to information
bartering with professional colleagues), although some of it can be learned in
specialised educational environments.
Work-related knowledge is to some extent quite difficult to pin down for two reasons.
First, it contains a tacit dimension and, second, it is bound up with particular social
contexts: that is, work-related knowledge is applied within particular communities of
practice, who develop ideas about how knowledge should be acquired, applied and
shared.
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co-operation, etc.) that in the long run give shape to individual knowledge and
determine a social construction of knowledge. Understood this way, the context
creates a dynamic equilibrium between the know-what of theory, and the know-how
of practice. In fact, it is through the tight inter-dependence, or better the co-
production of theoretical knowledge and practical knowledge (Brown et al 1989), that
competencies can be developed and maintained.
Recently ideas about the application of tacit knowledge in particular social contexts
have been developed further in considering moves to create knowledge-creating
companies (Nonaka & Takeuchi 1995). The model is based on the assumption that
knowledge in organisations, especially in the most innovative enterprises, is created
through the interaction between tacit and explicit knowledge, continuously
converting one into the other one. The model postulated four different modes of
knowledge conversion called socialisation (from tacit knowledge to tacit knowledge),
externalisation (from tacit knowledge to explicit knowledge), combination (from
explicit knowledge to explicit knowledge), and internalisation (from explicit
knowledge to tacit knowledge).
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sorting, adding, combining, and categorising explicit knowledge can lead to new
knowledge.
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Many of the studies in the field have tended to concentrate on human resource
development and of the implications of new forms of work organisation for
management development, rather than examine the role of the teacher and trainer in
the acquisition and development of work based knowledge and skills. One of the
cornerstones of the EC funded EUROPROF project is to examine the role that VET
professionals play in the development of work process knowledge and to design new
curricula which reflect this role (Heidegger, 1995; Attwell, 1996). An acknowledged
difficulty in this process is the various levels of disaggregation, firstly between the
role of teachers and trainers in developing work process knowledge in others, and
secondly in the design of learning processes to develop teachers and trainers own
work process knowledge. Furthermore the relation of the teacher and trainer to the
work process itself raises questions of the nature of professional competence for this
occupation. A further challenge is the need to bring together professionals and
academics working in a number of different disciplines and from different countries
and cultures in order to achieve the project goals.
Work process knowledge has particular significance for companies attempting to give
a clear focus upon learning, knowledge and development. Such companies have
increasingly been labelled as learning organisations, although the concept is used for
different purposes in different contexts. Bouwen (1992) describes three main
meanings of the concept of the learning organisation. In the broadest meaning the
concept of the learning organisation is used to indicate an organisation that provides
training and education for its workers. Training may be part of the companys
strategic plan and may be organised according to a set of rational principles, but it is
not integrated: training remains something separate in the organisation. The second
way in which the concept of the learning organisation is used is to point to the need
for permanent change and improvement. The third meaning of the learning
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organisation is the one that Bouwen prefers. In this case the learning organisation is
an organisation which is capable, as a social system, of collecting and validating data
to improve performance and to plan and carry out actions in which all company
members are involved. In this way learning in depth is stimulated as well as long
term effectiveness. The quality of communication and interaction are especially
important. Many improvement programmes for organisations are based on attempts to
improve organisational learning, through improving the capacity of the learning
organisation (Bouwen, 1992), including those emphasising processes of continuous
improvement.
The learning organisation raises demands for individual learning and for
organisational learning. Cole (1995) stresses the difference between the two. Many
commentators make the implicit assumption that individual learning aggregates in a
linear fashion to provide the basis of organisational learning, but Cole doubts this is
always the case. Cole names three necessary conditions for converting individual
learning into organisational learning. They are motivation, capability and
opportunity. Too often managers forget one or two of these critical conditions.
They may, for example, provide training programmes whilst failing to provide
conditions for practice and application.
In the literature on the learning organisation much attention is paid to the skills
required of managers: including operating new styles of leadership, new styles of
communication and interaction and so on. Senge (1990) speaks of the new key
competencies for the leader in the learning organisation as being those of the
designer, teacher and steward. Brown (1994) states that one should distinguish
between competences (work content skills) and meta-competences (which rely on
learning from experience) when talking about managerial performance. On the other
hand little attention is paid to the changes needed in the training programmes
themselves. Many speak of on the job training, just in time training and the necessary
conditional motivation as if it was some sort of magic formula. However, it is much
rarer for writers to talk of the key qualities for the new trainer, who is needed to help
realise the learning organisation.
As was argued previously, Nonaku and Takeuchi (1995) see innovation as springing
from the continuous and dynamic interaction between implicit and explicit
knowledge. This can be represented as a learning cycle: see Figure 1.
Implicit Knowledge
Internalisation Socialisation
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Explicit Knowledge Implicit Knowledge
Combination Externalisation
Explicit Knowledge
One starts the learning cycle with socialisation, the process of sharing experiences
and thus creating implicit knowledge. The shared mental models and the shared
technical skills created in this way are what Nonaku and Takeuchi call implicit
knowledge. On the job training utilises the socialisation process, where implicit
knowledge is handed on from one person to another without language necessarily
being used in the process. The second step is the externalisation process: making
implicit knowledge explicit. This mode of knowledge conversion is typically seen as
the process of concept creation. The best way to do this is through a sequential use of
metaphor, analogy and model. Externalisation is the crucial process in knowledge
creation because it creates new explicit concepts from implicit knowledge. A step
further is the process of systematising concepts (seen as explicit knowledge) into a
knowledge system - the combination process. The best example of combination is the
process of knowledge creation in formal education and training in schools. The final
step is the internalisation - from explicit knowledge to implicit knowledge,
internalised in the way individuals behave and think at work.
Nonaku and Takeuchi provide many illustrative examples of their theories based on
the practice of individual companies. However, they fail to assess the relative
contributions or responsibilities of the different actors within these companies. It is
necessary to go further and examine the action and processes which take place within
the different functions in organisations and especially by the persons behind them,
including the trainers and managers, when we talk about the individual and
organisational learning. Furthermore it is important to realise that while knowledge
may be seen in terms of competitive advantage for and within companies, knowledge
is essentially a social process.
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VET professionals nor has it been adequately reflected in the development of new
occupational profiles for VET professionals.
The development of work process knowledge has particular implications for the roles
of teachers and trainers and thus for their own education and training. Firstly there is
the emphasis on the work process and critical points in the work process as both a
context for the acquisition and application of knowledge and skills and secondly as
the content for vocational education and training. The first may be seen in the moves
towards alternance in vocational education and training systems in different countries
in Europe, the combining of formal education with work experience and practice.
This had been accompanied by a move away from traditional didactic teaching
towards an emphasis on experience based learning, including project work and
problem solving and the use of the work place as a learning environment, whether in
a real or simulated situation. Teachers and trainers play the role of mentor and coach,
leading and guiding students and facilitating the process of reflection in action. They
also need to undertake the task of constructing and sequencing learning opportunities
and learning experiences and designing learning environments. Work experience or
on-the job learning in itself does not necessarily lead to work process knowledge, the
provision of work experience outside the context of planned learning programmes
and without the mediation of teachers and trainers may result in a high degree of
`empirical narrow mindedness and the `reproduction of the traditional. Kruse
(1986) has emphasised the importance of contact with the focal points of industrial
change in work and technology and of participation in the process of organisational
change in the development of work process knowledge. Although much of the
research to date has been in the sphere of industry and of information technologies the
same idea can be extended to non industrial sectors, including care and social
provision (Patiniotis, 1996).
In constructing work process knowledge vocational education and training has to
develop a prospective character, in teaching young people to shape and change future
technology and work. Shaping competence requires not only individual knowledge,
but also collective work process knowledge of the social regulations governing them
which enable the organisation of collective representations of interest (Rauner, 1995).
Skills are not effectively learnt, or taught, as series of competencies abstracted from
their application and use, neither can vocational and technical expertise be acquired
other than in a social and organisational context. Vocational teachers and trainers
need to have a theoretical and practical understanding of the shaping of skilled work
in the vocational field in which they are working and a holistic knowledge of the
work organisation. They must be able to combine the teaching of complex practical
skills and techniques together with an understanding and application of organisational
learning.
Many researchers in work process knowledge have been concerned at the design of
person / machine interfaces and at the application of open systems technology as an
aid to interactive learning environments and to the shaping of technology. At the
same time there has been intensive research from educationalists into the use of
information technologies for learning processes, especially in the provision of
computer assisted open and distance learning. This field constitutes a further area of
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work for vocational education and training professionals. It must be said that much
of the development to date has been marred by the failure of technologists to
understand the learning process and by the lack of interaction in the design of
educational technology. Open and distance learning, or intelligent person / machine
interfaces do not replace the role of the teacher and trainer. They do, however, lead
to a new role in the design of learning materials and to a changed role in the planning
and nature of intervention and mediation in individual and group learning processes.
The recognition of the importance of work process knowledge, together with rapid
changes in technology and new forms of work organisation, have focused attention on
the need for a broader and deeper knowledge base in order to apply knowledge in
uncertain and new situations and to be able to meet future change. VET professionals
must have an understanding of the relation of their own subject based knowledge and
competence to occupations and to related occupational fields. Their ability to plan
curricula and design learning programmes demand a knowledge not only of the
present and future context in which skills and competencies are to be applied, but also
an understanding of the direction developments of the industry and occupation as a
whole are taking. Furthermore they must be able to relate vocational and technical
competence in their particular occupation or field to broader areas of economic life
and to local and national labour market developments.
Such an approach though does carry dangers. For example, there is the danger that an
emphasis on higher levels of vocational education and training will result in
insufficient attention being given to the development of more practical knowledge
and skills. Additionally there is a danger of a widening gap between `general
vocational pedagogics (the planned, abstract tasks, knowledge and ability required in
the process of work) and the requirement for a full understanding of the work
process. Demands for increased flexibility have led to the concept of core skills or
key qualifications, however work process knowledge will not be acquired by the
teaching of learning to learn and problem solving skills outside a occupational or
subject context. Thus vocational education and training teachers and trainers need the
understanding of the subject which they teach and the ability to design and deliver
curricula which can relate subject based knowledge to occupationally organised
skilled work and to economic development at an enterprise, regional, national and
international levels.
The concept of work process knowledge is integrally linked to the idea of lifelong
learning. Initial vocational education and training only forms the basis for the
development of work process knowledge which in itself reflects and shapes the
changes in work organisation and applications of technology. VET professionals have
to be able to understand the different contexts and organisation of learning for initial
and continuing teaching and training, for young people and for adults. The traditional
divide between these spheres of teaching and learning are a barrier to the
development of work process knowledge.
In summary the theory and practice of work process knowledge is contributing to a
new and changed occupational profile for vocational education and training
professionals combining a need for subject based knowledge, an understanding of
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work processes and organisation, occupational expertise and familiarity with new
pedagogic approaches.
Concluding remarks
The debate around work process knowledge has usefully focused attention on the
application and practice of vocational knowledge in critical work situations and on
how such knowledge is acquired. The fruits of such research can be seen in the design
of new learning environments, especially in computer aided work stations and in such
concepts as the learning factory. Some of the research on new work organisations and
learning organisation theory have begun to look at the role of the teacher or trainers
in organisational or situated learning. Curriculum reform in initial vocational
education and training has tended to stress the importance of applied work process
knowledge through the introduction of alternance and simulated work practice. Ideas
of life long learning have stressed a new importance for continuing education and
training. Despite this, surveys and studies (see, for example, CEDEFOP, 1996) have
shown that the training of VET professionals, teachers and trainers, is still
fragmentary and replicates traditional cultural and institutional models. The
knowledge gained from researchers in areas such as work process knowledge has yet
to be reflected in the professional education of vocational education and training
practitioners. Yet this step is critical if the new insights and knowledge gained in the
world of work and applied knowledge is to enter the practice of skilled work through
its transmission and integration in the learning cycle and practice of skilled workers.
References
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psychology, New York: Harcourt Brace Jovanovich.
Attwell, G. (1996) EUROPROF Briefing Paper No 2, Bremen: ITB.
Bouwen, R. (1992) De lerende organisatie. In K.De Witte (ed), Continu opleiden.
Integale kwaliteitszorg als HRM strategie, Leuven / Amersfoort: Acco.
Brown, J., Collins, A. and Duguid, P. (1989) Situated cognition and the culture of
learning, Educational Researcher, 18, 1, 32-42.
Brown, R.B. (1994) Reframing the competency debate. Management knowledge and
Metacompetence in graduate education, Management learning, 25, 2 , *********
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Heidegger, G. (1995) New Forms of Basic and Further Education of
Professionals for Vocational Education and Training, EUROPROF Working
paper, Bremen.
Kruse, W. (1986) Bemerkungen zur Rolle der Forschung bei der Entwicklung und
Technikgestaltung. In Perspectiven technischer Bildung, Discussionpapiere der
Bremer Kommission Arbeit und Technik, Bremen
*******Nonaku in text
Senge, P.P. (1990) The leaders new work: building learning organisations,
Massachusetts: MIT Sloan School of Management.
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